Independent Alliance of MPs tells Starmer: stop enabling genocide

Independent Alliance of MPs calls on Starmer to ‘stop enabling genocide’

The Independent Alliance of MPs has just written to Labour Party prime minister Keir Starmer, imploring him to “stop enabling genocide”. This was in response to his refusal last week to call Israel’s actions in occupied Gaza a genocide. His denial went against what genocide experts and international organisations have said; and it stood in stark contrast with the other times in the past when he wasn’t afraid to use the word genocide.

Starmer’s “blatant disregard for international law”

The Independent Alliance of MPs letter mentions last week’s report from the UN’s Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices, which insisted that “Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza [have been] consistent with genocide, including use of starvation as weapon of war”. It also points to UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s report on Israel’s “settler colonial genocide” in Gaza.

In light of these damning words and others, Jeremy Corbyn, Shockat Adam, Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, and Iqbal Mohamed stressed that Starmer’s:

flippant denial of genocide egregiously downplays the suffering of Palestinians and shows blatant disregard for international law.

They also asked Starmer whether he has “received any legal advice over the definition of genocide”. And they insisted that:

If the government is relying on its own definition, we ask that you share this definition and explain why the horrors in Gaza do not qualify.

Additionally, they sought to uncover what the government has been “doing to fulfil its obligations, under the Genocide Convention, to prevent genocide”, if it thought UN officials were “undermining the seriousness of the term genocide”, and how it would advise Palestinians to “describe the mass slaughter of their people”.

Independent Alliance of MPs: “stop enabling genocide”

In their conclusion, the Independent Alliance of MPs suggested that Starmer’s genocide denialism may be “rooted in the knowledge that, if you accepted the true scale of what is happening, you would be admitting your government’s ongoing complicity in crimes against humanity”. And they called on the government to “stop enabling genocide, end all arms sales to Israel, and start treating Palestinians as human beings with equal worth”.